If you have talked to anyone from the master of science
in prosthetics and orthotics program at the Georgia Institute of
Technology (Georgia Tech), you may have heard it mentioned
that one weakness in our training is in the area of technical
skills. I personally came into the program with zero, nada,
absolutely no technical fabrication experience whatsoever. Not only
had I not performed any work in an O&P lab, I also had not seen
much of it. Okay, so there, I admit it. This lack of experience
became glaringly obvious to me, and surely to my instructors, and
probably even to my patient models (who are so kind nonetheless)
last year during my first attempts at fabrication. In fact, my
first orthotic fabrication assignment, a custom-molded UCBL foot
orthotic, and my first prosthetics project, a transtibial patella
tendon-bearing (PTB) socket, were absolutely awful. They didn’t fit
well and didn’t even look pretty to make up for the poor fit. I
remember being discouraged with myself as I struggled to learn to
get along with plaster and to develop a comfortable confidence with
the grinding machines.
